Page:Bierce - Collected Works - Volume 08.djvu/284

270 stroke of our own rebuking eye? To this mo- mentous question let us now intelligently address our minds, sacredly pledged, as be- comes lovers of truth, to its determination in the manner most agreeable to our desires ; and if, in pursuance of this laudable design, we have the unhappiness to bother the bunions decorating the all-pervading feet of the good people whose deprecations are voiced in The Dance of Death and the clamatory literature of which that blessed volume was the honored parent, upon their own corns be it; they should not have obtruded these eminences

when youth and pleasure meet To chase the glowing hours with flying feet.

What, therefore, whence, and likewise why, is dancing? From what flower of nature, fertilized by what pollen of circumstance or necessity, is it the fruit? Let us go to the root of the matter.

II Nature takes a childish delight in tireless